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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073377">Protector of the Moors</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalstrigoii/pseuds/eternalstrigoii'>eternalstrigoii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nyvi of the Glacial Peaks [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Maleficent (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M, MAY come back and edit this in the future, ft casual Dark Fey worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:07:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,734</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30073377</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalstrigoii/pseuds/eternalstrigoii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a new day, the dawn of a new chapter for you all. The air was crisp and briny, and work on a magical bridge between the kingdoms was already underway.<br/>Which meant it was all the more crucial for you to map the territory and identify places in need of preservation for their medicinal qualities, and to do so quickly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Borra (Disney)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nyvi of the Glacial Peaks [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212608</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Protector of the Moors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a new day, the dawn of a new chapter for you all. The air was crisp and briny, and work on a magical bridge between the kingdoms was already underway.</p>
<p>Which meant it was all the more crucial for you to map the territory and identify places in need of preservation for their medicinal qualities, and to do so quickly.</p>
<p>The plan, or the rudimentary outline of one you’d sussed out the night before while gathered around a bonfire with your tired (and often wounded) kinsmen, involved taking your entire stock of pressed paper and making as detailed a map as possible while on foot. It would’ve been much easier from the skies, and much better for you to identify relative locations – and it wasn’t as though you were the only one with the same desire.</p>
<p>But you didn’t ask anyone to join you.</p>
<p>You were all tired. You were glad the battle passed quickly, because night had barely fallen when a great many of you took up residence in the trees. Now that you were liberated from your nest of origin, the collective of you hesitated to return, lest your freedom be fleeting.</p>
<p>A handful of you stayed awake well into the night. Ini fell asleep at the bonfire, watching the embers mingle with the stars. Borra listened to the night-sounds until one of the fledglings Udo returned for nodded off against his leg, and you ignored the fierce flutter in your heart when he gathered them to return to their nest-mother.</p>
<p>It was him you thought of while you gathered water from the white oaks – water that could be used for healing, as it broke fevers and staunched wounds. You thought of the cloth bandage around his arm and how lucky he’d been that it hadn’t gone a bit further in either direction. How difficult you’d always thought him, deliberately toying with iron to build his pain tolerance.</p>
<p>But he hadn’t fallen, and you refused to dwell on those of you that had, because you had a task at hand. You were fond of him, and he was alive, and you were glad.</p>
<p>And you desperately wanted to find some mullein. It would soothe the irritation so many of your people found themselves with, now, from the tainted iron in the air.</p>
<p>You made a small note in the corner of your page of the plants you hoped to find, your foot supporting your woven water-basket. The sun on your neck and the breeze in your wings carried the pungent perfume of sweet mandrake, and you paused your note taking to breathe it in.</p>
<p>And nearly kicked over your water-basket when you heard the earth shift behind you.</p>
<p>“Fallen <em>stars!”</em> You whirled around, nearly slapping Borra with one of your flared, snowy wings.</p>
<p>He had the nerve not play chastised, leaving the ghost of a heart-rending smile on his lips when you faced him. “Are you doing that all by yourself?”</p>
<p>You floundered. “Were you <em>spying</em> on me?” you managed when you regained the ability to speak.</p>
<p>He quirked his head, and you had half a mind to pull back a branch and trap his big horns in it. “I’m not unfamiliar with the territory.”</p>
<p>“So I’ve noticed!”</p>
<p><em>Horrible</em>, you thought pointedly when his mouth started to quirk, poorly-repressed laughter threatening to slip out. “Did I scare you?”</p>
<p>“No more than you have in the past, you piebald <em>nuisance</em>!”</p>
<p>He <em>did</em> laugh, then, and though your irritation was largely for show, you thought the sound might’ve quieted even the deepest fury. He laughed so <em>rarely</em>. It was like stumbling upon a secluded oasis; a gift for you and you alone.</p>
<p>“I’ve got scouting to do,” he said as though he knew about your map and your plans without being told. Maybe he did; he did see you writing. “I prefer you don’t go alone.”</p>
<p>You couldn’t even pretend it was because of your long-injured wing; he was just like that. Not even Suren, Ini or Shrike were spared.</p>
<p>You sighed theatrically and stowed your water-basket safely in the low branches. You rolled up your materials and stuffed them in your satchel before accepting his offered arms – taking your sweet time about it just to be a thorn in his side.</p>
<p>Not that he minded. As wary as he was of what lied beyond the river and beyond the moors, you’d both waited too long not to grasp your freedom by the antlers.</p>
<p>“Do <em>not</em> drop me,” you cautioned playfully as you wound your arms around his neck, and got tugged flush against his body for your trouble. He was all powerful muscle, and his radiant heat made you shiver.</p>
<p>“Then hold on.” His bright eyes glinted with mischief, and his huge wings beat so hard yours folded instinctively. He launched you both into the sky on a self-created windstorm, the force of which made the leaves tremble on the branches.</p>
<p>You clung to him, your satchel trapped between your hip and his, until you cleared the canopy.</p>
<p>Skies, it really <em>was</em> beautiful.</p>
<p>Were it not for your half-limp wing, you would’ve made this journey yourself hours ago.</p>
<p>Your wings flared instinctively to aid the both of you in coasting. He was unfazed by your weight against his chest, drawing you up until you nearly kissed the clouds. You saw what he’d described in moons-old plans – fields of grain packed dense like walls, a slow-moving windmill just above a mortal village, and the moors. They were so large, so deep, that it was no wonder Ulstead alone had the nerve to prey on them. How many people could wander in and just <em>vanish</em>, lost to the sheer treachery of the landscape alone?</p>
<p>You tightened your grasp when you flattened only for Borra to turn slowly, affording <em>you</em> the proper aerial view.</p>
<p>Below, you saw the moor-folk returning to their lives. You saw flower-people fluttering between the meadows and the streams, people like iridescent dragonflies glinting and shimmering in the sun. You saw Suren tossing berries at the raven Diaval from her respective perch in the trees – as a bird, rather than a man – and him trying to catch them from his branch before they fell, and were stolen by the amphibious peoples who lived in the brook between them.</p>
<p>It was a magical place. Something well worth fighting for, like the man supporting you whose eyes had never left your face. You were so happy to be soaring over the moors that you forgot, for a time, to harbor fear that it might still all be taken away.</p>
<p>“How well do you know this place?” you asked at last. You’d veered toward the peaks and, as interested in fully mapping the territory as you were, you hoped to identify your necessities first.</p>
<p>“Well enough,” Borra replied. Well enough to feel secure in battle, then, which meant well enough to propose your list.</p>
<p>You told him what you were looking for in hopes that he memorized what those plants were; he was no stranger to your work, and he was keen enough that you imagined he’d have at least a rough idea what you were talking about.</p>
<p>He thought it over for a moment, and slowly curled his wings around yours.</p>
<p>You took the cue and let him steer.</p>
<p>He let you glide on top of him until you were ready to dive, and the slow turn of your bodies made you intimately aware of how close you’d gotten, your leg hooked comfortably around one of his. Your eyes flickered up to his, and you must’ve been a little frosty, because his mouth quirked into that ever so lovely not-smirk that meant he was absolutely laughing at you inside.</p>
<p>It wasn’t your fault he looked like that. Wasn’t yours that he acted like that, either, the peacocking fool.</p>
<p><em>Just for you</em>, you reminded yourself, and the flush of pleasure almost echoed the burn of frost in your cheeks.</p>
<p>You touched down in a meadow, and you flushed terribly at the way he held you up rather than let you slow your own descent once your feet touched the ground.</p>
<p>“Over there,” he said, much too casually letting go of your waist.</p>
<p>You unhooked yourself as though from a pup-cling and tidied your robes. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>He inclined his head, content to wait.</p>
<p>It was so bright, there. You couldn’t imagine the world outside could be much brighter than the jungle fey’s territory, but the hues of green in the leaves, the way shadow and cloud-shifted light danced over the bark of the trees, astounded you. You savored every step through the tall grasses, careful to keep the little sprites that rose to meet you from being caught in your clothes.</p>
<p>A dense cluster of mullein was nestled on a sunny ridge. Exactly what you’d been hoping for. And there was enough to take back to the nest to cultivate, should your people need the resource.</p>
<p>Leave it to Borra to take you right to the most important thing you could think of.</p>
<p>You began note-taking immediately, sketching out the rough outline of a map – marrying the sights of your flight with the rough-hewn one you recalled vividly from being etched into the stone floor of the meeting hall. You’d only covered a small portion of the moors, but you did your best to describe them accurately – here was the starting point, set back from the river; here were the peaks you’d neared. Here was the valley you currently stood in, and right, specifically, there, was the little grove of mullein.</p>
<p>You’d have to come back to uproot whole plants, you realized with a small measure of dejection. You’d only brought enough containers to secure parts for use.</p>
<p>A great peep-and-flutter arose behind you, and a part of you hoped that Borra was behaving himself. You took a bit from a portion of the plants, careful not to impact any of their growth significantly. You noted on another page their health, their size, their gathering time and what portions you’d harvest.</p>
<p>He laughed. Again.</p>
<p>It gave you pause the way the sun on your skin encouraged you to linger. You turned, your slender writing-charcoal still in-hand, and you nearly had to sit down.</p>
<p>The moor-folk were all over him, swarming like bees to sweet. He had several in each of his open palms, and you imagined that one settled and one became a dozen, but, no – he lightly skimmed his thumb-talon down the backs of one of the flower-people, and they shivered with delight.</p>
<p>“I remember you,” he said to one of the willow sprites that dared practically perch on his face. “You were unharmed?”</p>
<p>They chattered fiercely and though there was no way he understood them (you presumed, though he <em>had</em> spent more time on the moors than any of the rest of you), he paid attention to them while they hovered before him on thin, leafy wings.</p>
<p>There were six more of them in his hair, you realized, playing with it. And he let them.</p>
<p>“Good,” he said, though you hadn’t followed a word of it beyond the essence.</p>
<p>They were faeries he’d saved on his private crusade, his incidental attempts to uproot their new companion from her role as protector of the moors. The ones he’d saved from being stolen, who he’d freed himself. Before or after killing their captors, you’d never asked, and it didn’t seem to matter. They knew him, and they loved him, and you saw him that gentle so rarely that, for a moment, you swore your heart might fully frost over.</p>
<p>One of the little dragonfly-people touched his cheek, their high-pitched murmurs of concern drawing tears to your eyes.</p>
<p>“No, no,” he soothed, “they’re natural. It’s decorative.”</p>
<p>Ancestors be with you, you had never loved another as fiercely as you did him.</p>
<p>They touched, marveled. They’d seen horns and wings on Maleficent, but maybe never that way. Maybe they knew her too well (you hadn’t yet learned of their once-tenuous relationship with your people). His wings shifted at the brush of petals on his cheek, and a great chorus of <em>oh!</em> rose up from them.</p>
<p>He smiled so widely that it caused a physical ache in your chest. You brushed away the dampness on your lashes that threatened to make itself apparent. How long had it been since you saw him so at peace? Since you knew without uncertainty that he was happy?</p>
<p>“Alright.” His shoulders rolled, and a few of them giggled as they dislodged. “No more of that.”</p>
<p>The willow sprites in his hair giggled the loudest.</p>
<p>“How proud you are of your dirt,” you muttered, halfhearted, into your notes.</p>
<p>“What was that?” he had no trouble faux-raising his voice to remind you he could hear you all the way across the field.</p>
<p><em>You’re a dirty little magpie and I love you with all my heart</em>, you thought, though you said, “It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve rubbed dust into my clothes!”</p>
<p>He grinned, but it was different. The glimmer was back in his sandstorm eyes, and the little fey knew better than to linger close. They scurried off into the fields, giggling as they watched him launch himself at you – like you were fledglings again, roughhousing in the belly of your people’s nest. He caught you around your white-robed waist and pulled you up off the ground.</p>
<p>You dropped your things and grabbed the straps of his leather armor in warning. “Borra, don’t you dare--!”</p>
<p>“I dare,” he grinned, and your breathlessness at the sight of him fell second to your absolute distrust of the mischief in his eyes.</p>
<p>“I’ll kick you!”</p>
<p>He hauled you up against him like you weighed nothing, like you were as light as his gaggle of faeries despite the furry lining of your clothes. You gripped him for dear life, folding your wings in close.</p>
<p>He flopped backward in the grass hard enough to make you huff. <em>Dropped like a weight</em>, you thought, and followed it up with, <em>sunk like a stone. A big, much too pretty stone.</em></p>
<p>“<em>You’re</em> the one who wanted to go picking leaves, but you complain about getting dirty.”</p>
<p>You had half a quick retort in mind, but you stopped yourself. It was over now. The war, the preparation. Things could change. You could sink into the springs with him, work a fish-bone comb through his hair with the utmost patience. You might even be able to tend the more obvious cracks at the base of his horns, though whether or not their severity worsened naturally with age or if it was just from benign neglect, you weren’t entirely sure.</p>
<p>“I’m not complaining,” you muttered, and it said far more than you expected it would. You loved him. You were as grateful as they were. For the mullein, for the map, for his obsessive attention to detail, for his love, for his joining you this morning, and for his being with you now. Oh, <em>skies</em>, how you loved him, like a flutist who only knew one song.</p>
<p>He laid still under you, and it took you a moment to realize that he was toying lightly with a lock of your hair. It was so nice to rest, even among obligations. Even if you knew he would never go unprepared, you could see it in his face – in the slow blink of his eyes and the soft set of his jaw beneath your fingers – there was hope he would know peace.</p>
<p>You lowered your forehead and pressed horns gently with him. He was sunshine-radiant against you, and you heard him make his low, purr-like sound at the frost that bloomed where your skin met.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” you murmured. For the help, and for not dying; for his love and a thousand other little things whose names escaped memory.</p>
<p>“<em>Mm</em>.” He bunted gently against your horns in return. “Tell me when you’re ready to move on.”</p>
<p>You lingered there, against him, for a little while longer. The flower people had come to play with your hair and touch your skin and marvel at your cold and the softness of your wings, and you were happy to let them.</p>
<p>“<em>Protector of the moors</em>,” you muttered.</p>
<p>He smiled a bit wider, and you couldn’t resist kissing him.</p>
<p>The flower people had a field day with that.</p>
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